'This needs sorting, not just for ordinary people but for the kids'

The ancient city of Ripon has seen off marauding Scots, Vikings and IRA bombers in its time, but its latest defences are up against a drunken core of its own resident teenagers.

Serious crime is negligible in the comfortable and largely affluent staging post close to the Great North Road, but illegal alcohol has created a menace which broke cover six days ago.

To the horror of tourists (crucial to the local economy), the nightly hornblowing ceremony was broken up by a drink-fuelled melee which left the hornblower, George Pickles, with a split lip and gum, and forced him to retreat to the steps of the town hall.

As he battled on with a talk on the event's quaint history, a gang of youths as young as 13, who had clearly been drinking, heckled him from pushbikes, swore and shoved away passers-by.

The incident followed other episodes involving drunken teenage gangs and it led to a chorus of support yesterday for Cheshire's chief constable, Peter Fahy.

The officer's call for more parental responsibility, a ban on alcohol in public barring designated areas, and tougher action against young drinkers, was overwhelmingly welcomed in the North Yorkshire city, one of the smallest in England but typical of many where cheap drink and boisterous teenagers are a volatile combination.

"We've got a lot to be thankful for in a lovely place like this," said Linda Ibbetson, dodging a rain shower by the obelisk in Market Place, where Mr Pickles was ambushed. "But this problem needs sorting, not just for ordinary decent people, but for the kids themselves. It's a dead end if they carry on that way and they need telling." Local teenagers overwhelmingly agreed, making the familiar point in small communities of there being "nothing to do", but explaining how under-age drinking had contributed to that.

Three 16-year-olds, two just finished at Ripon College comprehensive, and the third at Ripon grammar school, made the point as they ambled home. "There's a small group who wreck everything," they said. "There was a great youth centre called Ripskys but the chavs got in there with their drink and drugs, and it was closed down. St Wilfrid's church organised a drop-in and they ruined that too. Go down to the leisure centre now and you'll see how they've taken over the skateboard park. Needles, broken glass - that's how you can tell where they are."

North Yorkshire police now keep a presence at 9pm every night in the Market Square, and acting inspector Christine Turner says they know the troublemakers. "The town centre is covered by CCTV and ... it isn't difficult to track people down."

What is harder is drying up the source of alcohol, which, as Mr Fahy said, comes in Ripon almost entirely from the teenagers' homes, with some adults agreeing to buy the drink.

"There are loads of under-18s who drink quietly here," said one of the trio of 16-year-olds. "The bridge which takes the bypass over the river Ure is a good place to go looking for them."

Support for Mr Fahy's blanket ban is also strong because of the success of Ripon's "no public drinking" zones. A map in Insp Turner's office shows a lot of red-hatched areas where drinking has been forbidden since May last year - which has worked.

"I've had no vandalism for 18 months now," said the head park keeper at Royal Spa Gardens, where bottles and cans used to rival plants in the flower beds until the designation order. Rather than sticking to the patchwork of ban zones, Ripon would clearly back the Fahy route: no public drinking at all, except for a few monitored enclaves.